12 (ahem 6) Days of Christmas - 2 months later

Back in December I had really good intentions of doing a little twist on the 12 Days of Christmas with Alyssa.  I had 12 activities or projects planned... but we only managed to pull off 6 of them.  Still a good time, with room to improve next year. 

The first day we made snow globes.



On the second day we made Santa Clause.  Who doesn't love projects with glue and cotton balls?

On the third day... or something like that...  We had a Frosty the Snowman party.

We had Torrey come home with Alyssa after school one day.  They ate snowman cookies and watched Frosty the snowman. 

For one of the days we headed down to Thanksgiving Point to see the lights.  It was SOOOO cold!  Tammy had gone a few days before and told us to be sure to get good seats on the wagon so the kids could see everything.  Well..... we didn't have a problem seeing anything because we were the ONLY ones on the wagon!  Everyone else venturing down to see the lights chickened out and drove through in their cars.

 We bundled up the kidlets enough to sleep in the snow... yet there was none.

aaaaand I had a little fun with the shutter speed on my camera.

For weeks before we did this, Alyssa had been asking to go ice skating.  I wasn't sure how exactly that would work, especially taking her myself.  How was I supposed to document this event, take the pictures AND teach her how to skate?  So we invited Little Miss Auntie Mist to join us.

She was pretty brave...

... spent a little time on her toosh...

Then FINALLY figured out the little walker.  It took her some time to figure out just how to dig her toes in to the ice and get the walker moving.  But once she did... she was OUTTA THERE!  Those little legs were flying SO fast.  I even got a "See Ya!" as she sped off. 

At one point in time, a litte boy came up along side of her.  He was probably a couple years older than she is, and he wanted to race.  So not a fair race!  But that didn't stop her.  She gave him the stink face and took off with all her might, trying so hard to beat him.  Unfortunately, he sped off and she just couldn't keep up.  She'll get him next time, though.

She did take one pretty good fall and bumped her bum pretty hard on the ice.  There were tears and she was done with this ice skating business.  Well we weren't going to end with a bad experience.  After hugs, kisses and reassurance that no permanent damage was done, she gave it another go.  She was even brave enough to set the walker aside and skate from Misty to me and back to Auntie Mist.

All in all, the 12 (6) Days of Christmas were very fun.  I think I'm going to try to do it again this year, and hopefully add those last 6 days...

Top Secret Blogging

In the next few days this old bloggity blog will be going private.  If you would like to continue being all up on the Beckstrand's business, leave me a comment or email me your email address and I'll send you an invite to my "by invitation only" blog.  

Later.

Ice Castles

 Alyssa and I headed to Midway today to see the Ice Castles.  They were SO cool!  Unfortuantely, due to the "heat wave" ("heat" apparently being defined as 38 degrees) we couldn't walk through the 2 or 3 great big ones.  You could still get close enough to see in them though.  Way fun.

 Most of them are smaller, can't exactly walk through the castle.  But there were a few of them that were HUGE!!!  The one above was my fav.

 Alyssa loved them.  She also loved picking up "ice babies."  She found a hole next to one of the ice walls and put probably 10 or 12 little babies inside so they could rest.

 Since we were there during the "heat wave" the icecicles were dripping.  One managed to drip right down Alyssa's shirt.  Brrrrrrrr!

And what's an afternoon out without a little tooshy dance?!

Tender Moments

I don't believe there are words to adequately describe the tender experience I had with Alyssa last night, but I'm going to do my best so that I can remember that night.

I was backing up photos from 2010 and pulled out a dvd my dad made me of Alyssa's first year.  He took several snapshots and put them to the perfect music.  Now, of course, I cry every time I watch it.  Through the entire thing.  Every time.

The opening line is "Alyssa - we have been waiting for you and we are so glad you are here."  You can see the reason for the tears.

I pulled Alyssa on to my lap and we watched it together.

After only 7 or 8 photos, I noticed she was tearing up.  When I asked her if she was ok, she told me she was just crying happy tears.

After sharing a movie filled with "happy tears" I wanted to talk to her about how she was feeling.  She told me she was just so happy.  We talked about what a special girl she is.  How our whole family waited to have such a special girl come in to our lives.  That everyone loves her and we are all so grateful that we get to have her in our family.

We called Tim to come up from the basement and have some family time with us.  She told us that she loved us and was happy to be in our family and we told her, again, how much we loved her.

She truly is a special little girl.

And we are the luckiest parents to have such a special girl to be our daughter.